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Planetary Astrophotography - Planet Mars 6/25/2016

Hot night of June 25, 2016, I proposed to capture the planet Mars from my home in Caguas, Puerto Rico. I built my astronomical equipment (Meade LX90, Orion MountSirius EQ-G, barlow and camera Luminos Celestron NexImage 5) all controlled by stellarium scope and Celestron ASCOM drivers installed on a laptop Alienware 17. At 8:30 pm, I started capture the planet Marsat 25fpsa video of 3.30 minutes at1024x 768 resolution. The weather conditionswerenot optimalbecauseitis going through a curtain ofparticulatedustof theSahara.

Once completed with a catch red planet, I decided to process the GIMP program Registax 6 and having average results due to the clarity of the catch. In the first picture, you can notice the natural colors of the planet was captured by the camera NexImage 5 Celestron. You can noticethe north pole which now has little snow while the southern polar cap has a large area.Itisinthe red planet's summerright now.

I removedthe color saturationto betterfeel theterrainon the planet.Places such asTerra Cimmeria (black side down), Elysium Planitia (center)andUtopia Planitia (black top part) can be seen.In the photo on the right, the colors are reversed through the curve in GIMPto better see the mountainous elevations Phlegra Dorsa.

The experience of making planetary astrophotography is knowing that from your privacy of your home can conduct scientific research in the amateur aspect, see the variations of environments and have sufficient data to measure changes through logbooks and monitoring.

About Me

From an early age, I was always fascinated by all kinds of topics related to space and the pursuit of knowledge in reference to Where do we come from? If my body is made of elements formed in the stars ... we are part of them? Where we go? and other similar issues. After completing my studies in May 2011, I joined local and international astronomical societies. Thanks to social networks and the media in the country, have been known for astrophotography and astronomical all age groups explanations. Currently, I participate actively as Astrophotographer astronomy popularizer and networks, schools, universities,...